FINCHforum

I recently built a small aviary with my daughter. It is 5'wide, 5'tall, 3'deep. We currently have a mated pair of diamond doves. If I wanted to add a pair of finches in with them, what species would be best? Thanks for any insight!

Hi. I have DD's and finches. The only problem I've ever had was when my Canaries wanted to torment the DD's and would sneakily pull feathers from them when they were roosting. So.. no canaries with DD's for sure.

Most finches would be fine with DD's and vice versa. Do you have a particular finch in mind?

Not really. Have any suggestions on what I should get? Favorites?

Well that's kind of hard to pick a favorite -- you kind of have to pick a trait you want ... like do you want babies on a regular basis from the finches (you will get them from the DD's if they are a pair). Do you want a hardier finch that will be able to handle lots of temperatures?

My diamond dove males chased the recently fledged baby males around so continually that all of my finches were frazzled.
I re-homed them because the finches in the aviary were so unsettled due to all the commotion.

Zebra finches might be an option. They're cheap, colourfull, not too big, and they can be pushy little birds who can stand up for themselves when needed. Only problem is if you have a good pair, the hen will keep on laying eggs until the nest is removed. It's best to only allow them to have couple of clutches per year, anymore and it could lead to calcium deficiency.

Most smaller finches will get along fine with Diamond Doves in that size enclosure. Diamond Doves use open nests, like canaries, whereas most finches use nest-boxes - so for most finches, there will be no conflict with Diamond Doves.

Breeding pairs of Diamond Doves can be intolerant of their own babies, once they reach full adult size. So if you breed Diamond Doves, you need to plan to remove the babies once they grow long tails like the adults or the male (father) Diamond Doves will chase them mercilessly. Only 1 breeding pair of Diamond Doves per enclosure! (and once a pair breeds once, they may consider the cage or aviary their exclusive breeding territory, even if you remove the nest!). But they will generally leave finches alone.

I bred Diamond Doves for years. The babies can fly in about 2 weeks after hatching and have short tails for a month or more. But once the babies grow long tails and their profile (shape) changes to look like adult Diamond Doves, the males suddenly get intolerant of them and want them OUT of their enclosure.

Here's a male Diamond Dove that I had for 15 years, in the 1980s and 1990s. His name was "Pecker" and he was so aggressive that, whenever I let him out of his cage, he'd immediately fly over and attack his reflection in the side of my toaster! He was hyper-hormonal and fearless but he did father many babies. He became finger tame all on his own - I never had to do anything to tame him - he used to like to sit on my shoulder and snooze.